Don’t forget the giveaway going on to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this blog! You can read all about it here and posting a comment anywhere on the blog this week will enter you to win!!
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Just over a year ago, I sat at the kitchen table with my husband. I told him that I had this insane, totally crazy idea that I couldn’t shake.
And I was trying to shake it.
“I don’t want to blog,” I said. “I’m not a blogger. I don’t have time to blog. I don’t want to 
talk about me. What in the world could I say day after day? I’d probably write for a month and then have to stop.”
I tried to convince him that it was a stupid idea.
He looked at me and said, “If God wants you to do this, you need to do it. None of that really matters.”
I don’t know what’s next, how long it’ll take, what it will look like. All I can do is obey here and now, writing these devotionals as God directs.
Life rolls along in its repetitious way—commuting to work, picking up kids, going to church, supervising the brushing of hair and teeth, making lunches and cooking dinners.
Then one day God asks us to do something crazy—like write a blog that you don’t want to write when you don’t have time to write it.
Or:
Start a new ministry. Visit the nursing home regularly. Take a missions trip across the globe. Feed the hungry. Foster or adopt children in need. Make blankets for children in the hospital. Volunteer at the local school. Send shoes overseas.
This is the way ordinary people like you and me can have impact in this massive world. We move when and where God tells us to move and we serve faithfully where He has placed us to serve.
Paul lived this kind of radically obedient life. He was a tentmaker by trade and he had no qualms about setting up shop in a city and sewing tents during the moments he wasn’t teaching in the synagogue, writing the bulk of the New Testament, or preaching Christ to the Gentiles.
This is what he did in Corinth when he stayed and worked with Aquila and Priscilla—tentmakers and teachers in their own New Testament house church (Acts 18:1-3).
Paul easily could have lived out a tentmaking life with a small-town ministry to the local synagogue. He could have made himself comfortable, happy and content there.
God, however, told him to pack his bags and get going. So he did. In all things, he submitted to God’s direction and timing.
During his second missionary journey, Paul wanted to travel to the Asian church of Ephesus, but “they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6). Then, they “tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them” (Acts 16:7).
After all those “no’s”, you’d think Paul would be discouraged.
Instead, God sent him to Macedonia, where Paul became the first Christian missionary in Europe. He baptized Lydia there and she started the first European church in her home.
God reached a continent because Paul was willing to do the crazy and unexpected in obedience to God’s call.
Even then, Paul could have settled into life as a missionary to Europe. But now that the time was right, God released him to preach in Asia and off Paul went to Ephesus (Acts 18).
This world needs us to live obedient lives, just as Paul did, yielding to God and going where and when He tells us to go.
The people in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches, our jobs need us to engage fully in the ministry God has given us in those places. When God tells us to settle in and care for our families, we do. When he tells us to minister in our community, we roll up our sleeves and serve.
But we refuse to slip into complacency, snuggling down into our comfortable nests and spending all our time tending our own chicks and redecorating our own spaces with sticks and straw.
So, if he tells us to pack our bags for a journey in radical obedience, we yank out the suitcase.
How do we discern this? How do we know what to do when there is so much need in the homes in our neighborhood and in the countries we can’t even locate on the globe?
How can a small-town mom minister to the poorest of the poor? How can a working woman in a local school save orphans? How can an average girl serve widows?
How can any of us reach the world with Christ?
Elisabeth Elliott’s advice is just to “do the next thing.”
We don’t need to have a map for our entire mission on this earth. Paul didn’t even know from one moment to the next whether he was headed to Asia or Europe or just setting up a tent business in town for a while.
But he did the next thing. And then God gave him the next thing. Then there was the thing after that.
In every instance, he obeyed, whether it was simple or difficult, logical or totally insane.
Has God given you a next thing? Have you sat at the kitchen table telling someone how insane it is and how you don’t want to do it? Has God asked you to do something that sounds impossible? Has He opened your eyes and heart to need that you never noticed before?
Do the next thing. Don’t worry about meeting every need or making the project a success. Just take this step of obedience. That’s how we change the world, one submissive bowing of the head and bending of the knee at a time.
You can read more devotionals on this topic here:
Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.
Copyright © 2012 Heather King
Heather C. King - Room to Breathe 
I know how you feel about the repeated things each day; going to work, going to the gym, going home to fix dinner, updating webpages, cataloging books, getting clothes ready for the next day, appointments, visits, filling my bird feeders, writing cards, mailing letters, checking emails, watching grandkids, spending time with my hubby, hoping to find time to read a book, cutting my hair, going to church on Sunday, fit in a game of golf, etc., etc. And the list goes on. I’m thankful that I have these things that God has put in my life. When God speaks to me about something new….I know he will give me a time and a place to do what he asks. Until then, I will carry on…….doing His will…….and who knows…..maybe I’ll blog too (in my old age). :>
Lynn, I feel like you’ve already taken some “next thing” steps in the last year-and-a-half that were God-ordained. Like taking over the church website, which is so much better for it. And taking charge of the church library, which greatly blesses me and others. You’ve brought passion and skill to both of these ministries that have revived them and made them full of impact. That’s exactly the kind of obedience I want to emulate. Thank you for doing that!
What a fabulous post. Thank you so much for the encouragement and inspiration to “just do the next thing…” and trust Him to take care of the rest.